WombatNation

Maybe this is the year I finally buy a cyclo-cross bike and experience the gut wrenching thrill of shouldering my bike up a steep, muddy hill, bouncing down trails through the trees, and then afterward drinking Belgian beers and eating grilled sausages with the people who lapped me repeatedly.

The July issue of Wired has a review of a couple of cyclo-cross bikes. The review was written by a member of Team Oakland, which I’m also a member of, and the reviewers were racers from the racing team part of our club, Kaiser Permanente/Team Oakland, including one of my friends. I think the $6,000 Moots Psychlo-X is way more bike than I need, though I do love the name.

There was a 5.6 magnitude earthquake just north of San Jose a few minutes ago. We didn’t feel much at our house in Oakland, though the water in a water cooler sloshed softly back and forth for nearly twenty seconds. My wife’s sister in Modesto said it shook their whole house and that it was the strongest earthquake she has ever felt. She hasn’t yet gotten hold of her daughter in Santa Cruz. The epicenter would be roughly in the center of a triangle formed by Oakland, Modesto, and Santa Cruz.

I happened to be standing in the bedroom doorway when this last quake just hit. Not that I needed to be there, though, as this was one of the weakest of the five or so noticeable tremors we’ve had in the last year. This one was centered in the same location as the last. The epicenter was near Butters Drive about a mile and a half from our house.

I just checked back at the USGS site and they have now assigned it a 3.2 magnitude, subject to seismologist review. This one had a double bump, but both were fairly weak.

Although there is a lot going on with the San Jose Earthquakes, there was also some moving and shaking nearby my house early this morning. After a little flurry of quakes in December, 2006, all has been quiet on the Western Front. Last night at 4:42 a.m., though, we got a pretty good jolt. I felt the rumbling for close to ten seconds, and I could hear wine glasses in a hanging rack pinging against each other for another five to ten seconds.

I happened to be awake at the time of the quake, because just about ten minutes earlier my cat Nicholas had thrown up some grass he had eaten earlier and then demanded an early breakfast. This temblor was significantly longer and stronger than the previous ones. It turned out to be a 4.2, whereas the previous ones had been in the 3.5 – 3.7 range. Also, the epicenter was much closer to our house. In the Google map I just linked to, my house is just off the left of the map.

The epicenter was along Butters Drive, which is part of my most common bike route up and over the hills. The Oakland Naturfreunde clubhouse is right at the epicenter. Hopefully, they didn’t suffer any damage.

Ok, this is getting tedious. It looks like I need to investigate writing some code to automate writing the inital part of these earthquake posts.

At 9:21 this morning we had a 3.5 magnitude earthquake at almost the exact same location as yesterday evening’s quake. I was still lying in bed when this one hit. I felt a quick, thudding jerk to the right, followed by a series of smaller bumps that diminished in amplitude. It lasted for only about 1 second. The direction of the initial movement was away from the epicenter.

Just two days after our 3.7 temblor, another earthquake just struck tonight at 10:50 pm. This one felt a little weaker at our house, but it had more of a rumbling, rolling character. It seemed to last just over one second, with one loud thump followed quickly by several thumps of diminishing amplitude.

It was also a 3.7 according to the USGS. When I first went to the page for tonight’s it was listed as a 3.6, but when I refreshed the page it had changed to a 3.7 after review by a seismologist. This quake was also 2 miles ESE of Berkeley, but it was 6.2 miles deep instead of 5.6 miles deep.
Let’s hope the North Hayward fault is just letting off a little stress, and not warming up for the big one.

Not a huge quake, but it was pretty close to us. The preliminary USGS report says it was a 3.7 at 7:12 pm 2 miles ESE of Berkeley. The epicenter was very close to the Claremont hotel in Oakland.

I felt a couple of thumps over about 2 seconds. There was one relatively strong thump and a couple of mild ones. The only damage we know of so far at our house was one cookie sliding off a cookie sheet in the oven.
I filled out the USGS survey indicating how strong the shaking was at my house. The Community Internet Intensity Map for this quake is available online.

A friend who was still at the office in Alameda IM’d me immediately to ask if I also felt the quake. My wife called KALX and they didn’t feel anything there, even though they are much closer to the epicenter. Of course, the radio station is in the basement of a building on which a ton of money was spent on seismic retrofitting.

Given how minor the quake was, I don’t think the seismic work we had done on our house this summer made much of a difference, but I’m still very happy to have had the work done.