03/01/2004   English German
  Edition # 49  
San Francisco, 03-01-2004

It's Shaking Again
Figure [1]: An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 on the Richter scale.

Michael On Monday, December 22nd, at eleven o'clock in the morning, I was working in the office when suddenly the AOL/Netscape building began to sway back and forth in a wave-like, quite harmonious motion, about half a meter each way. We had just moved into new premises on the third floor, and at first, I thought someone was pushing a heavy cabinet down the hallway. When it continued and even the colleague who was standing at the entrance to my cubicle talking to me started looking puzzled, I quickly checked the internet, and lo and behold: a 6.5 on the Richter scale.

Figure [2]: An IM conversation during the quake.

While one gets used to minor tremors over the years in a seismically active area, a 6.5 on the nonlinear scale is a serious magnitude--poorly constructed buildings can collapse, and being buried under one is no fun. In fact, in the town of Paso Robles, which was near the epicenter, three people lost their lives when a building collapsed. I immediately called Angelika's cell phone, but unfortunately, no one answered. At home, I left a message on the answering machine. After a while, I became worried and looked up the number for the photo darkroom in the basement (!) of the UC Berkeley Extension, where she was once again spending time--fortunately, no one there had noticed the quake and would have thought to make contact. Phew!

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