Shocks and aftershocks
It's been a while.
Last week I went up to the hospital for all of the pre-surgical appointments. Had yet another ultrasound, met with a nurse who took various vital statistics, the anesthetist who needed to know whether I had my own teeth and how big my throat was, a junior doctor who went through all my history and risks and stuff, and finally the more senior doctor who told me that the results from the scan were that the troubling cyst had shrunk and surgery was no longer needed. The whole process seemed a bit redundant at that point...
Good news, yeah but I'd got myself all psyched up for it, made plans to take time off and get Mum down here to look after me and the rest, and suddenly - no longer needed. Carry on. Back to the quarterly scan and blood test regime. It's taken a bit of time to readjust though.
Then - earthquakes. Four of them that made me start thinking about hiding places and getting away from the plate glass - two on Friday, followed by one Sunday morning, 7.08 am (yeah not on the weekend, thanks) and the worst one, magnitude 5.6, 17km deep and about 50km away, 5 pm on Sunday evening. That one I actually got up and away from the window, stood under a structural bit of house and wondered if the bottles of fish sauce and olive oil were going to rattle themselves off the shelves. The alcohol lives on the bottom shelf of the pantry, so it was pretty safe at least.
I get bit worried that so far the quakes have been getting bigger - everything I've heard about earthquakes says you get a big one at some random time interval and then a sequence of generally decreasing aftershocks, and that's not what happened. The reports of building damage (true) and sinkholes (false) coming in over the radio didn't help and neither did the Civil Defense guy saying to stay out of the CBD on Monday morning. Memories of Christchurch are near the surface for everyone, I think.
I packed a bag with camping type clothes and my good camera, and put my tramping boots near the door before going to bed and not sleeping. Turns out, I have a lot of torches but no battery powered radio and not a lot of portable food.
Come Monday I called work and was told to stay at home. I spent the day mucking about online, teaching myself how to use d3 and wondering which trembles are real and which I was imagining. From tracking on Geonet, I reckon I was feeling ones over about magnitude 4.5. Back at work today, Tuesday and a header tank has failed somewhere, leaving our reception area smelling like wet dog and the lifts out of action. Glad for once I'm on the third floor and not the 16th.
So, it's all been a bit unsettling really. How're things at your place?
Last week I went up to the hospital for all of the pre-surgical appointments. Had yet another ultrasound, met with a nurse who took various vital statistics, the anesthetist who needed to know whether I had my own teeth and how big my throat was, a junior doctor who went through all my history and risks and stuff, and finally the more senior doctor who told me that the results from the scan were that the troubling cyst had shrunk and surgery was no longer needed. The whole process seemed a bit redundant at that point...
Good news, yeah but I'd got myself all psyched up for it, made plans to take time off and get Mum down here to look after me and the rest, and suddenly - no longer needed. Carry on. Back to the quarterly scan and blood test regime. It's taken a bit of time to readjust though.
Then - earthquakes. Four of them that made me start thinking about hiding places and getting away from the plate glass - two on Friday, followed by one Sunday morning, 7.08 am (yeah not on the weekend, thanks) and the worst one, magnitude 5.6, 17km deep and about 50km away, 5 pm on Sunday evening. That one I actually got up and away from the window, stood under a structural bit of house and wondered if the bottles of fish sauce and olive oil were going to rattle themselves off the shelves. The alcohol lives on the bottom shelf of the pantry, so it was pretty safe at least.
I get bit worried that so far the quakes have been getting bigger - everything I've heard about earthquakes says you get a big one at some random time interval and then a sequence of generally decreasing aftershocks, and that's not what happened. The reports of building damage (true) and sinkholes (false) coming in over the radio didn't help and neither did the Civil Defense guy saying to stay out of the CBD on Monday morning. Memories of Christchurch are near the surface for everyone, I think.
I packed a bag with camping type clothes and my good camera, and put my tramping boots near the door before going to bed and not sleeping. Turns out, I have a lot of torches but no battery powered radio and not a lot of portable food.
Come Monday I called work and was told to stay at home. I spent the day mucking about online, teaching myself how to use d3 and wondering which trembles are real and which I was imagining. From tracking on Geonet, I reckon I was feeling ones over about magnitude 4.5. Back at work today, Tuesday and a header tank has failed somewhere, leaving our reception area smelling like wet dog and the lifts out of action. Glad for once I'm on the third floor and not the 16th.
So, it's all been a bit unsettling really. How're things at your place?