Prayers for Japan with 8.8 earthquake/tsunami

Update: Dr. Lucy Jones from Caltech comments on the Japanese earthquake/tsunami. She says that the good news is that the earthquake was offshore so the buildings did not all collapse. The bad news is that the faultline was 300 to 500 miles long and underwater, creating a tsunami.

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8.8 is enormous. (Note, earthquake has been upgraded to 8.9). I know people say Japan has buildings built to withstand earthquakes but sometimes mother nature overpowers our best plans. I hope everybody stays safe. The location is Sendai, Honshu. News reports showed some water rushing through streets and some automobiles submerged. This is being reported as a 13-foot tsunami.

News reports also show smoke coming from a high rise building in Tokyo.

People waiting at Disneyland in Tokyo.

Haiti Devastated, Help Needed

Via Drudge Report, there is a website offering satellite views of Haiti, before and after the recent devastating earthquake. The photos brought tears to my eyes. I read on Reuters last night that the 50,000 dead bodies are piling high and create a threat to the health of the remaining earthquake victims.

Countless requests have come from people wanting to help. The best way to do that is to make a donation to the American Red Cross International Response Fund at redcross.org or by calling 1-800-RED-CROSS. Donors can designate their gifts to Haiti relief. Donations to the International Response Fund allows the American Red Cross to respond to global emergencies and disasters.
In addition, several hundred thousand people have chosen to make a mobile donation. Donors can text "Haiti" to 90999 on their cell phone to send a $10 donation to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. The mobile giving effort raised more than $3 million by Thursday morning, and all money raised goes to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

More here at the Red Cross.
The text donation is very quick and easy. A reply comes to confirm, reply back in the affirmative and it is done.
Red Cross Photo Essay:

Earthquake damage

OK, here are the pictures you have been waiting for.

I *knew* I heard the sound of glass breaking when I ran down the hallway. I looked all over the house, but didn't find this until later in the evening.


There might have been a crack in the concrete leading to the pool stairs before, but it is now wider and offset in a small stair-step. There are numerous other hairline cracks in the concrete patio as well, that either appeared or widened.


And this corner lifter up further. I will have to call a company to smooth it down so the kids don't stub their toes. This is the exact point they jump off from when jumping into the deep area in the middle of the pool.

Earthquake recollections

Sorry, no pictures today. I didn't feel like taking any. Too fresh, too nervous. But here is what happened.

Around 11:30am I was organizing my closet upstairs when the shaking started. Little shaking at first, but I decided to start running to the baby's room in case it got bigger. It DID. As I rounded the corner in the bedroom the house started banging and moving side to side hard. I have educated myself about earthquakes, so when I saw the bedroom door flapping closed and open as I approached it, I was not surprised. I grabbed it mid-swing and ran through. I turned left and sprinted down the hall to the baby's room. The problem was, that the upstairs hall is more of a balcony. There is a full rail the length of it and it hangs over the hard tile of the downstairs entryway. The house was really moving as I ran and the hall looked bent as it moved. As I ran I heard a crashing to my right when the chandelier over the staircase swung into the wall 3 feet away from it. I entered the baby's room, thanking myself for securing the bookcases into the wall studs, grabbed the baby up from a sound sleep and turned to go out. The house had settled down. Miss I met me at the bottom of the stairs and we decided to go out and gather our wits in the backyard. The pool water had waves about 18 inches high, and the water was sloshing out of the pool. The phone started ringing as people called to check on us. I found a lot of new cracks in the concrete patio in the back yard. I don't see any cracks in the pool itself. Miss I was downstairs and said she saw the ground rolling in waves. Later when I went back upstairs I found a lamp in my bedroom on its side. A lot of upstairs drawers were open. The bathroom drawers were all open about 4 inches. Most of the heavy file drawers in the office were open about 8 inches. And the kids' clothing drawers were open about 8 inches.

The neighborhood grocery store is closed, too. Which is a bummer because I really need taco shells, or my dinner is going to be a little lacking. Oh well. We have to do the best we can, right?

The Walmart was open, and I bought 12 gallons of water for our earthquake kit. I was pretty embarrassed to realize that here was another important thing I had put off for tomorrow. What if the water mains had cracked and my huge family had nothing to drink! :-(

Tiny earthquakes, Knott's stories

About 5 minutes ago there was another little earthquake. I felt the shuddering and heard the house moving. It reminded me that another one struck during the night last night. I'm pretty sensitive to the signs. During the super mild ones, it sounds like the entire house is whispering. I heard that sound and jerked awake suddenly to see if it would get worse. It went away. But I had disturbing dreams after that. With my kids in danger, of course.

My oldest 2 are coming home with some interesting work stories from Knotts. My DS-16 almost got punched by a guest a few days ago. He was working in a game booth with another coworker and some young men were hanging out at the booth joking around with them. One of the kids was joking with my son and may have said some insulting things. My son at one point said "You idiot..." to the kid, at which point the kid went ballistic, jumped into the booth, grabbed my son and said, "What did you say, BITCH???? SAY IT AGAIN!!! SAY IT AGAIN!!!!" DS apologized over and over and his coworker convinced the kids to leave. DS talked to his supervisor about it and his supervisor told him that he shouldn't have called the kid an idiot. DS told me that he was only "joking", and that he had not expected the kid to "go all 'gang'" on him. I told him that these kids are not the suburban kids that he grew up with, and that some of them do indeed belong to gangs. Also, he insulted the kid in front of his friends. And in addition, I spoke at length about how he had the responsibility to act professionally because he was the one wearing the uniform for Knotts. Overall, this is exactly the kind of lesson DS needed to learn. I'm so glad he wasn't hurt in the process. But he really *does* have a big mouth, and even at home with my he can say the most hurtful things, saying afterwards that he was joking. I have told him over and over that it's not a joke when *he* is the only one laughing. And that hurting people is not funny. But maybe he needed somebody to get in his face like that to learn how to control his mouth. And 16 is a much better age to learn this than later in his 20s. He is essentially taking a crash course in human communication and interaction this summer, and he is getting paid for it. I expect he will be able to get along better with classmates in the future, and he will certainly know how to act more professionally in the workplace, interacting with customers, coworkers and supervisors. My whole idea was that even if he ended up getting fired from his job this summer, it would still be a positive experience because he would have learned something. It looks like he won't be fired over this incident, though, he just got his hours for next week and he has a full schedule. Also, he tends to earn about three times what the average worker earns in any booth he works. I think partly because he has ADHD and he loves games, and he has a lot of energy and enthusiasm, which is infectious.

DD also has had some interesting work politics going on at the Knotts restaurant where she works. There are or rather *were* 3 hostesses on staff there. One of the hostesses, let's call her M, was widely hated by the servers because she was a complete ditz. She sat customers all clumped on some stations and none in others and didn't seem to understand the concept of how to distribute groups in a restaurant, no matter how many times she was told. And she got punitive if any of the servers complained, purposefully not seating their stations. So DD comes in there 2 weeks ago and it took her a full 2 hours to learn the concept. She has been doing well there and has been given a *ton* of hours while M has had her hours cut, probably due to staff complaints. And M was also told not to seat anybody when DD was working, so all she did was wander around the restaurant straightening salt shakers. Things came to a head yesterday when M seated 7 people at a table meant for 4 and crammed them in front of an exit. All the servers wanted her fired, but DD came up with the idea of making the gal a bus person. This seemed a good idea because the gal likes to straighten things up, and she had been inquiring lately about how much the bus people make in tips, and how that wasn't fair because the hostesses get no tips. So she can be a bus person, make more money, get more hours, and stop making her coworkers miserable. They moved her to another restaurant too, which is probably good, so she can have a fresh start. The good thing is, that nobody knows it was DD's idea. She really didn't want to get in the middle of all the politics right after starting work. But she may have saved this gal from losing her job.

Less driving today than usual. Both of their work shifts end within a couple of hours of each other, so I asked the kids to wait around for each other. That means I only have to drive over there twice today. Yay! I'm heating the jacuzzi for the 2 youngest ones right now so they can get a little swimming in before lunch and nap. DS8 is off with his Dad this weekend.