Earthquakes in the Midwest
Well, as many of you know there was an earthquake in the Midwest on Friday morning. The quake was centered in West Salem, Illinois - which is a little over 250 miles south of Chicago. News on the quake showed that people felt the tremors as far as Milwaukee, Des Moines and Atlanta (nearly 400 miles Southeast). While I usually sleep through anything, I did wake up on Friday, with my bed shaking for about 5 seconds. I felt a small after shock a few seconds later.
Regardless of the fact that I live on the 2nd floor of an old two-story walk-up, I pretty much rolled over and went back to sleep. Here’s a quick pic of home sweet home, in Chicago:
I’ve heard of the New Madrid fault line before, and having known about it, this was actually the third time I thought we were being hit by an earthquake in the Midwest. The first time I was a little more jumpy… got up and looked around outside to see what was happening. By the third round (Friday) I feel like I’m living in California… didn’t phase me.
The first two times I woke up thinking there was an earthquake, and the apartment was rocking, it turned out to be construction. In my neighborhood they’ve been knocking down a lot of older buildings to build three story condos, or huge single family homes. Here is a pic out the back door of my apartment. There used to be three condos/rowhouses where they are building these two single family homes (this pic is from March of 2006, the buildings are now complete and occupied).
SPEEDSKATING UPDATE - Not much to report right now. We are still technically in the off-season, as team workouts don’t start for another 10 days. I’ve been picking up the pace at the gym, but still nothing that would be considered strenuous - still focusing on light weights with higher reps to build a base for when we get going.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:24 am
After an earthquake, two men were talking and one asked, “If there was another earthquake, and you knew the world was going to end, what would you do?”
The other guy said, “I’d have sex with the first thing that moves. What would you do?”
The first guy replies, “I’d stand very still.”
-Comedian Fred Charles