Shake, Rattle, and Roll

After spending some quality time under my desk, while my cat tried to climb up my butt, I'm having a few flashbacks to this little soiree . It sucked ass then, and one 5.1 and 9 significant, sharp, aftershocks later (and a change of undershorts), from about 2-3 miles to the epicenter, it really, really sucks ass now. 
The problem with little earthquakes after going through a big one, is you can no longer count on the little ones to stay little, or conveniently stop after a few seconds. And this close, with a shallow epicenter, everything doesn't sway. It rattles and booms like a retarded driver's ed student who keeps backing into your house randomly at 5-10 miles an hour.

Worse was the 3.6 about 70 minutes before the 5.1 was pretty mean, but over in seconds. Which is tres bitchin', until you find out it was just a foreshock to the 5.1 that put me under the desk listening to the place get its ass kicked (oh, look, there goes the backup PC's CRT flying by...) until it stops. And you start wondering if that is the foreshock to something another 2 points higher on the scale (which, if you live on stable ground, is the rough equivalent of a Cat III-V hurricane, except delivered in about a minute and change).

So I have most of the preps I'd druther have (other than living in the middle of a stable tectonic plate), but I'm extremely over the "house and stuff in the house could fall on me in my sleep" BS. So I probably won't sleep much tonight, and if I do, it'll be fully dressed, boots on but loosened, B.O.B. in the truck, and cursing every snap, crackle, and pop until they stop happening some days hence.

All this while every fire truck, ambulance, and police helicopter are out on patrol doing canned surveys for damage to the dams, bridges, and overpasses (10 major interstates for 90 miles around with an overpass about every 1/4 mile...) for the next few hours.

May I state for the record, "Fuck fuck fucking fuckitty fuck!"

And this was a minor localized event, with the walls and windows intact, and the power and water still working fine.

50/50 if I survive to the back end of another monstrous big one, I'll stop driving when I hit Chesapeake Bay, and maybe take a short vacation thereabouts before coming back here. You only get so many blood pressure points in one lifetime.

Song Of the Day: AC/DC You Shook Me All Night Long