Disaster Averted

I know that yesterday, there was a lot of worry about the tsunami resulting from the earthquake that hit Japan.

My fiancee woke me up quite early because she had gotten a phone call warning of the tsunami and suggesting evacuation. (I later heard from a coworker who lived in another section of town that her phone call was soon followed by emergency workers showing up to evacuate her.) Eager to get back to sleep, and realizing that any kind of tsunami coming all the way from Japan isn't going to be terribly scary after expending so much energy crossing the ocean, I told her not to worry about it.

Before going back to bed, I did get her set up streaming local radio station KHUM, which was broadcasting news and information about what was going on. Streaming because we don't really have a radio in the house. Also, I figured if any link in that chain broke (power, internet), then it would be a good time to worry.

Time to worry never came. Although most of Old Town was closed because of fears of flooding, it never materialized. It was just a lot of disruption of business. Two items that came up on KHUM were bakeries that were unable to serve customers in their usual way (one had to close their Eureka store for the day and the other couldn't deliver to grocery stores that were closed) and were therefore having a huge sale for the customers that they could reach.

Crescent City, 100 miles to the north of me, did take significant damage to boats in the harbor. 4 people were reported to have been washed out to sea there, apparently ignoring ample warnings to stay away from the water.

When I got to work, I heard that they had had a very interesting lunch rush. Since we were one of the few restaurants in town that was open (and I'm pretty sure the only pizzeria), lunch was a madhouse. From there on, it went on to be a mostly normal day at work.

Now, for the people who didn't get off as lucky as myself and most of us on this side of the ocean, DrivethruRPG is holding a Red Cross fundraiser. They didn't take the time to gather a bundle of stuff to bribe people with, so the only compensation you'll get is the knowledge that you helped. And that's enough, isn't it?

No Mangaboos This Time

Sorry for the late blog post. Minor technology explosion.

Here in California, we know we live in earthquake country. It's something of a joke to us. Especially up here in the sparsely settled North Coast, where there's just not that much to severely damage. Total damage to my house in our latest earthquake: 1 broken glass and some cracked plaster.

If you've been following the news, Haiti was hit by a earthquake a few days afterwards. And this one was no joke. Lots of damage, lots of lives lost.

OneBookShelf (operators of DriveThruRPG and RPGNow) has started a fundraising drive to support Doctors Without Borders as they provide disaster relief in Haiti. If you contribute $5 or $10, OBS will match your donation. A contribution of $20 comes with a download coupon for a huge stack of gaming PDFs. (Were Adventures in Oz fit for public consumption, it would be on the list. I'm still about 4 illustrations away from completion.)

As I'm writing this, the total money raised is around $94,000. With your help, this can go even higher.

I'm okay, really

For those of you who have heard of the 6.5 earthquake that hit northern California yesterday, I just want you to know that I am okay. My house lost power for about 12 hours and my D&D group was too busy cleaning up and getting in touch with family to play today, but that's pretty much the worst of it. The only worry I have now is whether or not my workplace will be functional when I get there tomorrow.

UPDATE: My workplace was fine and I went back to work the next day. Here are a couple of links to news stories about the quake. Yahoo! (I live just a few blocks from Eureka Natural Foods) and the Times-Standard (the local newspaper)