Earthquakes and other natural disasters

The USGS website lists eleven significant earthquakes around the globe in the last 30 days. We had the top two of them today. The first was a 5.3 two miles north of Brawley at 12:31. We were sitting in the house after church. Deneen thought it was a train. But it just kept shaking and shaking. Then at 1:52 there was a 5.5 about three miles north of Brawley while we were standing in line at Starbucks. That one shook the whole store. We stood at the counter watching the cups shake back and fourth. You could feel the earth shake both ways, first one direction then the next. Everyone just sat there; business as usual.

Deneen thought she felt a couple more during the day. Tonight Lucas and I were just at Walmart. He pointed out that all the signs hanging from the ceiling were swinging back and forth.

Evidently, the fault here was very active today. I just looked at the USGS real time earthquake chart for Southern California. There were over 100 earthquakes listed in Brawley beginning around 7:30am. Most you don't feel. But a 5.5 is pretty big.

Earlier this evening I had to take a hot tub out to the new intern residence at the museum. On my way out of the parking lot I noticed a stream of water by the road that should not have been there. There was a broken water pipe at the storage facility shooting water into the air. I put a quick fix to it and and did not think much, except I could not figure out why the line had broke. It was like a shear break. It was weird. Now it makes since. Tomorrow I am going to have to write up an Environmental Incident report to record damage caused by an earthquake.

Karate Board Breaking at Museum

Water Color Workshop Video

It has been an extremely busy summer. I have not been keeping up with the blog. I came out a year and a half ago to open the Imperial Valley Desert Museum. The museum opened in March and this was our first full summer of programming. We received a summer grant for healthy activities, so Lucas has been teaching karate, and we received a grant for an artist-in-residence. Martin has been here all summer investigating desert sized art and running the youth coiled-clay art program.

This past weekend was the end of our summer programming and we held a watercolor painting workshop. Saturday was also the karate board breaking ceremony. So it was a big, full day. Our whole family participated in the painting class. The painting instructor was really good. Even Deneen liked it. She painted this bird, which I thought turned out great.

There was an article and video in the paper today. Click here to see Davis going on and on about the painting class. The video looks like it was just us, but the other people who came did not give photo release permission.

Big Bay (15 second) Boom

I am sure you have seen on the news the crazy 15 second fireworks display in San Diego on Wednesday. Deneen, Lucas, Davis, and I were there. I flew in to San Diego on Tuesday. We had planned the trip so that we would be able to see the firewors display. We visited the Maritime Museum and the Midway Museum, both located on the bay, and then found a bench at the end of one of the piers.

We staked out a place right on the end of the pier early in the afternoon. Deneen was not extremely happy to sit all afternoon. It was extremely cold for July, 65 degrees, with a stiff wind coming off of the ocean. We did not plan well and had no blankets or chairs.

At about five minutes before 9:00pm there was a tremendous series of explosions. We could see three of the barges, and the barge in front of us was less than 100 yards. It was really loud. I had to put my hands over my ears. The crowd starting cheering, thinking that this was the start to the best fireworks display they were ever going to see. It quickly became apparent that something was wrong. At 9:00 the radio played a coutdown, but then nothing happened. The music that was to sinc with the fireworks continued to play. We could see people with flashlights on the barge. Then, about 20 minutes later, the tug boat attached to the barge put it in high gear and started moving the barge back across the bay.

I just watched the event on Youtube. It looks way different that I remember it. I don't remember the explosions being very big, they were just loud. But the video is crazy. Lucas only captured the last seconds on his iPhone, but you can clearly hear the crowd, and Davis, to understand the everyone's reaction. After sitting on the bay all day it was a real bust. Then we got in the car and drove and hour and a half home.

Why Too Busy to Blog?

My brother Bryan has been complaining that I never blog anymore. I kind of blew this off, then I see that I have one blog in the month of February, one in April, and one so far in May. He did not take any of my excuses.

What excuses? Life is crazy. All I do is work. Lately, work is mostly writing.

This last week I had an interview with a lady in Brawley who immigrated from Italy in the 1950s to avoid an arranged marriage. I knew that the article was to be about Italian cooking and I had suggested that the photographer take pictures of the lady cooking. I thought the interview would take an hour. When we got there it became clear that this was a lunch meeting, and it was an Italian lunch meeting. We had pasta Siciliana. As Bryan will remember, I knew this was going to be a pork dish because of a dinner we once had in Culver City. But unlike that day, which is a story only the best of friends, and four family members, will know, this was the best Italian food I have had in California. Three hours later I had heard story after story and had eaten two plates of pasta. It took two more days to edit my notes into 1000 words.

I use to say that on Grand Turk you had nothing but time. Whatever you wanted to become, you could become on Grand Turk. Because there was nothing to do, you could devote your time to learning something. And this actually became what you did for fun. I knew people there who were working on contract who became fluent in Spanish. Or who moved from working a cruise ship excursion to being the leading marine biologist in reef reclamation.

I had all these plans. I was going to finish two books. I was going to learn French, Italian, and Spanish. What I did was cook and blog. But then, as I return to the states something amazing happened. I can cook really well. And I can write.

I did not see this coming, but all the writing I did on Grand Turk for free, has turned into a second job in the Imperial Valley. Within the first few months of being here I was hired at the Imperial Valley Press to write advertorial copy. I sent the editor there a link to articles I had written for the Turks and Caicos Weekly News and a link to my blog. The next thing I knew I am getting writing assignments to travel around and write about cool stuff you can do in Southern California. That blossomed into writing for the Winter Shopper magazine, the Valley Women Magazine, and Abundant Opportunities, the magazine of the Imperial Valley Economic Development Corporation. All the time I use to spend in the evenings blogging, I now write travel articles. Or in the case of Valley Women, stories about women.

Most people I run into now, here in the Valley, know me from the Valley Women's magazine. I basically interview women and write their stories. Typically, I set up interviews at Starbucks, talk to someone for an hour, then write their story and email it to an editor. I have never seen the magazine. The other day, Deneen made fun of me by telling me she had read one of my articles - at the  hair salon. I asked if it was the one on wedding planning, she said no, it was the one about wearing a condom (in all fairness, that was an important story on the county director for AIDS awareness).

  

Lucas' Life through My Eyes

Update: and here is a picture from Budapest, July 2017, one of the three summers Lucas spent building inhabitable art in Hungary!












I will be the first to admit, when you look at the pictures it is a little hard to listen to the complaints. I guess we have worked hard not to let school get in the way of his education.


Tucson, Arizona, April 2012. Lucas took two days off school to go to Tucson to see TuneYards and the Sonora Desert Museum

Coyote Mountains, overlooking Ocotillo, Ca, April 2012. Lucas on a hike that we did nearly every weekend over the winter.

Carnival Destiny, overlooking Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands. The last of five cruises Lucas took while moving between Columbus and Grand Turk when he was in school at Ft. Hayes.

London, England, January 2009. Lucas missed the first two weeks of school in January 2009 to go on a Holland America cruise to Miami  and then a week-long trip to London. Even so, he was student of the month at Ft. Hayes for the month of January.

Salt Cay, Turks and Caicos Islands, February 2008. One of a hundred or so days of diving and snorkeling in the Caribbean. Lucas was the youngest diver ever to participate in a reef reclamation project with REEF out of Miami.

Blue Ridge Mountains, November 2007, on our way to Miami to move to the Turks and Caicos Islands we spent a week in the mountains.

Complaints Will Be Received the Second Tuesday of Next Week

Since my last blog, three things have occupied my time. One is Lucas.

Lucas has four days left in his Junior year of high school. This has not been the easiest year. And he has not been as excited about going to high school in California as, lets say, Davis has. Today, Lucas says, "I have not learned one thing this year. Well , maybe one thing - don't let school get in the way of your education - Mark Twain said that. And the ends justify the means - Machiavelli said that."

Lucas has had an interesting high school experience. He attended HJ Robbins for a year on Grand Turk, in the British West Indies, where among other things he played in the steel drum band. He attended Ft. Hayes Arts and Academic High School, in Columbus, Ohio, for two years. And he is just about finished with his Junior year at Southwest High School where he is in the Southwest Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (SAVAPA) program doing visual arts. He has passed the state graduation exams in both Ohio and California.

You can say he has had a high school experience that was full of diversity, but he will tell you that is not true, there was no diversity. On Grand Turk he was one of two Caucasian students in the whole school (the other was his brother), the student body at Southwest is 86% Hispanic, and Ft. Hayes was a very urban pubic school. Lucas has complained a lot this year, especially about having to take another state graduation test, but when you write this down, it really seems quite remarkable. And given all that, he has risen to the challenge of moving somewhere new, and he has excelled. This month we have had to go to a half a dozen awards banquets. Lucas received an award for having the highest score in the county for his Mock Trial character. He received the Shining Star award for being the second best art student in the SAVAPA program. And after placing second in the Sub-regional and Regional, Lucas came in second at the Rotary District 5340 4-way Test Speech Contest, the highest anyone from Imperial County has ever placed. 

 

On Thursday, we had a big Rotary event at the museum. I stood up and gave a talk about everything that was going on. At the end I asked if anyone had any questions. No joke, someone raised their hand and said, "Tell us about Lucas."