Exciting Day

I certainly didn't expect to feel everything shaking this morning at around 7 am and especially the second time aroune 7:15. At first I thought it was just unusual for me to be up that early on a Sunday morning for one thing. It must have been just a little before 7 since I had time to get out of bed, look around to see my wife was gone to do her photography thing in the Haleiwa area and go back to bed. I lay there for just a few minutes when the entire room started shaking which was quite a surprise and fascinating experience. Being 150 miles from the epicenter made the quake much less than the 6.6 reported by the USGS and I was lucky none of my things got knocked off the shelves, etc.

While I was thinking about the first quake that was a completely new and unexpected experience for me, the first aftershock made the room shake 7 minutes later; measured 5.8 on the Reicter scale. That's when I noticed the power had gone off; I had been trying to turn on the computer to see what was going on and nothing would go on. So, I started listening to KSSK, the only station on the air, on the little battery powered radio I had for the rest of the day. Electricity was just restored to the upper Pearl City area a few hours ago.

Where's the Kaboom?

"There was supposed to be a powerful, earth-shattering kaboom"

- Marvin the Martian

The results of the "much anticipated" nuclear test by North Korea seems to have been a dud by any objective observations with the yield being less than a kiloton and radiation not being detected by our monitoring planes. I guess they forgot the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator? One thing is certain, though, it looks like this is much ado about nothing.

Aftermath

I've been hearing accounts of the funerals for the Amish girls that were murdered earlier this week and can only express amazement and awe for the response by the families to the widow and father-in-law. The Amish demonstrated exceptional strength and compassion by embracing the shooter's wife and father-in-law; something that is uncommon these days. There is still no reason being given for why the man did what he did and the sketchy details are just that; general statements with no real relevance. While I don't want to live that particular life, I still admire and respect the people that choose it.