One Disastrous Week

Duck and cover! Its Wednesday, August 24, 2011, I'm bracing for impact, and this is The Side.

Sometimes a fella has to wonder whether or not there's a higher power out to get him, and I'm not talking about Linda's threats of disemboweling me, although she technically does count as a higher power. We had an earthquake yesterday. I found out about this later, because even though I was on step ladder, I failed to notice it. The house actually shook, which I know because the woman that was inside the house told me so. I didn't feel a thing. We don't get many earthquakes here in Virginia so when we do have one it would be nice if I actually noticed it. I feel a bit ripped off. We got a tsunami warning too, but not much risk of that. Mostly that was a "really?" moment.

Then there's the wildfire which has blanketed various parts of the area in smoke depending on which way the wind is blowing. One part of Suffolk actually had an air quality condition of purple. Not red, PURPLE. That's past red on the scale. You think code red is bad. That's doesn't have shit on a code purple. You hear code purple, you hide your ass.

That's not to be confused with a code pink, which I hear is some political group but I can't take them seriously at all due to their name. "Code pink" is what we used to call it when you were late for work due to some morning nookie, and was accepted by the boss as a legitimate reason.

The wildfire itself has consumed about nine square miles of the Great Dismal Swamp. A lightning strike set it off. There's a lot of dead wood out there from a fire a couple years ago. Its been burning most of the month now.

Finally, there's Hurricane Irene which is heading my way and due to say "howdy" this weekend. Hopefully all the rain will put out that frakkin' fire. We've already gotten plenty of phone calls from clients worried about their properties down at the beach. These things are so unpredictable. We could get off light. We could get our asses handed to us.

Right now my plan is to ride this one out. I don't wet my shorts for anything under a Cat 2, and that's what it looks like it'll be when it gets here, if it gets here. Its currently due Saturday morning. Don't expect a post on Sunday because its a safe bet that I'll be without power for the weekend. Longest I've been without power due to a hurricane was three days, but like I said, there's no telling how this'll go.

I really need to upgrade the Nozz Compound, and include a bunker.

MUSIC!!

I really dig this version of the song. Robert Rodriguez rules like school.



That's all for me today. The forecast doesn't have the hurricane hitting until Saturday, so I should see y'all Friday.

On the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami

Its Sunday, March 13, 2011 and this is The Side. No dumb lines this time around. Friday I posted up my usual comic reviews and a top 10 list which I was pretty happy with. The main thing on my mind was my kids' birthday. Then the news came in. I felt pretty douchey posting my goofy shit when there was so much serious shit going on. Some things happen and you get a real idea of how small you are. I thought a lot about it this weekend. I was distracted a bit by the birthday party and work and other things, which I'm thankful for. It gave me a lot of perspective in dealing with a bunch of four-year-olds at a Tinkerbell themed party.

THE QUAKE

I've been in earthquakes, but only minor ones. It was the variety of you get woke up in the middle of the night, everything is shaking, and you say "fuck this" and go back to sleep. The one that hit in Japan was not of that variety. I could throw up a ton of links with news on the disaster, but really all you need to do is go to wherever you get news from and it'll be there. The quake was as bad as any Japan has ever seen. The tsunami was worse in terms of destruction and deaths. People are watching the damaged nuclear reactors cautiously, checking radiation levels, cringing at the explosions, and holding their breathes while they pray the worst doesn't happen.

Japan wasn't the only country affected. We're all on the same planet, and when something so major happens its effects travel. In this case its very literal as a tsunami was sent rocketing across the pacific ocean towards the United States. We suffered nowhere near as much damage as Japan, but you have to appreciate the magnitude of what happened so far away when its effects physically hit here.

I had to explain how tsunamis function to a kid I work with. He doesn't have much of a science background. These waves are only a couple of feet high, but they're moving as sometimes hundreds of miles per hour. So when the the ocean gets shallower near the beach you get a massive swell that causes the damage. Its not some massive wave that crests over the horizon.

I live very near the east coast, and we had our tsunami scare a few years back. There was never any threat, but the local news folks needed ratings, so when the tsunami hit Indonesia they used that as a catalyst for scare stories. Scare stories are when news goons try to scare you into watching. We get those annually with hurricane season. "Are you prepared for the worst?"

So I was in no danger, but there are people I know that were. I don't talk to Kristie as much as I used to. She lives in Hawaii, and when this happened I was immediately concerned for her safety and my other friends there which I made the acquaintance of through her. Thankfully, she's safe. In the aftermath she wrote a very poignant piece about living in the aftermath of just a warning that needs to be read.

Here on the mainland the effects were felt along the west coast. One of the Vloggers I follow, Philip DeFranco, lives out there. He's very clever. He jokes about a lot of things, and can be very mocking and flippant. Not this time.



So think about the effects that are felt by the people here. Now trace them backwards. A mother calling concerned for her son, and the son reassures her he's fine. A young woman witnessing two girls making very worried phone calls, some of which may not have been answered. That's just the outskirts. That's the outer ripples of an event that changed and ended many lives.

I keep thinking about this little kid. I saw him at the Youth Butokusai back in 07. he was the youngest one in his group. These Japanese kids were doing a Kenjustu demonstration and looking like young samurai. The little guy was so young that they didn't let him use a real sword. Still there he was out there with his toy plastic sword, keeping up with the moves of his older teammates. I have no clue what his name is, and doubt I would recognize him if you showed me a picture. I remember thinking how great all those kids were, and now I'm praying they're all alright.

There's donations being taken up now for aid. Our president, whom I usually disagree with, has pledged aid and Naval ships are headed in to help. I spoke previously about the horrible NBC show HARRY'S LAW in which a judge on the show stated that Americans don't care about foreigners. The writers and producers of that show don't know Americans and the amount of love and support that's been shown to the people of Japan is a testament to that. We're in an economic crisis. People are out of work here. Families are losing their homes. This earthquake/tsunami reminds us of how much worse things can be, and still despite the tough times, we give.

Out of great tragedy can come great inspiration and hope. Pray for the people of Japan.

MUSIC!!

U2's first video, before they became overly douchey.



That's it for today. there's a lot of charities scrambling to raise money to help those affected by the earthquake/tsunami. If you can, make a little donation, or at least spread the word. Thanks.

Did the Earth move for you?

Recently there has been a lot of earthquake activity. Pretty bad one's too. Sometimes the planet gets a bit testy with things like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. I do remember that a lot of people figured California was going to have fallen into the ocean by now. The San Andreas Fault Line was pretty much the entry point for student to learn about plate tectonics. We knew California gets a lot of Earthquakes, and then we learned why. The Earth is really quite a nice place to live, but there's always something going on with it. It doesn't just sit quietly and sin through space. Parts are moving and sometimes some really spectacular and dangerous stuff happens. And of course it all quite fascinating and has been studied forever and a day.

But really all those geologists don't have a clue as to what they're talking about, because fortunately we've had a nice sensible Muslim Cleric inform us that the earthquakes are because women are not dressing as modestly as they should.

So are we as a society willing to risk more earthquakes for the sake of short skirts and low cut tops? It was a very hard question and one that was answered by SCIENCE! "Boobquake" started out on Facebook and led to two events in which ladies gathered to show off the goods. Translation: lots o cleavage. They did this to see if they could cause an earthquake. Well, nothing happened, which kinda sucks because it would have lent itself well to my theory that Global Warming is caused buy the simultaneous existence of Christina Hendricks, Dichen Lachman, and Zhang Ziyi.

Such a terribly blow to the woman's liberation movement. It seems they can't change the world. No earthquakes. Although that volcano in Iceland did start settling down about the same time as Boobquake. Perhaps the Cleric was wrong and we're getting earthquakes due to not enough cleavage. These questions demand answers. And those answers demand boobs.