09.22.07

Oh My God! It’s Raining!

Posted in Uncategorized at 9:07 am by Martin

It’s raining! It’s raining! I almost forgot how that feels like after something like 3 months without rain. Today, it’s really raining for the first time in a loooong time.

Rain from our Balcony

Oh my God! What are we going to do? We could, hm, stop on the freeway and look out of the window with a scared face waiting for the rain to stop. Or we could just continue to drive 90 mph on the freeway without worrying about the rain and potential hydroplanning. That’s what a lot of people do here when driving in the rain. It’s scary actually. But who can blame them. They’re not used to it. If you only ever have to drive in the rain for four to five days a year, you won’t have any experience with it.

Well, it definitely sucks for me that it’s raining today because we’re going to the Red Bull Air Race held in the bay in San Diego today. It’s funny how here when somebody throws a summer BBQ or a party or whatever they never think twice about a bad-weather plan like we used to do back home. Every invitiation you’d get to a part there would be a bad-weather plan on it, something like “In case of rain, we can go to our neighbors big cellar room…”.

09.03.07

My First Earthquake (Or: What Drinks Did I Have Last Night?)

Posted in Uncategorized at 1:48 pm by Martin

Yesterday at 10:30 in the morning I felt my first earthquake here in California. The epicenter was north of Temecula, which is about 45-60 minutes north east of Carlsbad. The earthquake reached 4.7 on the Richter scale. It wasn’t anything big here in Carlsbad. I was still lying in bed and just about to get up when I heard the wood of the house and the wooden shutters in my room make some noise. I also felt the bed shaking a little bit. Here’s a map that shows where people said they felt it:


The original source of the above image is: http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X10275733/ciim_display.html

Looking at the map of recent earthquakes in California at http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs it’s actually surprising I haven’t felt any other earthquakes so far.