All Shook Up - again - In southern California

Here I was. just laying back in bed, watching Sean Hannity, and fighting my bodies desire to fall asleep. Of course, my mind won that fight, and I continued to enjoy Hannity. However, as earth shaking as Sean can be, I never expected to experience his show in 4-D, because at about 9:28PM (and a few seconds), the bed started to roll and shake. At first, I thought our terrier mix - Skittles - jumped up on the bed.

At 47 pounds, she will sometimes cause as slight rolling and shake movement, even though our mattress is the kind that isn't supposed to move when someone jumps on the other side of it.

Last year, we purchased a Tempur-Pedic®, you know, the kind that shows in their television ads that if your wife jumps on the other side of the bed while a glass of red wine sits near where she is jumping, the bed, where you are laying, is not supposed to move, yet it did ! Once I looked and saw that Skittles was no where to be found, my eyes turned upward and focused in on the ceiling fan over the bed. Than my eyes turned toward the large picture window in our bedroom and the ivy planter fastened to the wall above that window. And, it was not a big surprise to see that they were swaying from side-to-side.

This is when I realized that we were in the midst of another California shaker.

As soon as it ended, about 20 seconds later, I got out of bed and walked toward the front room, where my wife was watching her television show, the two of us met in the hallway, along with two dogs and two cats. We both asked each other, "did you fell that???"

Californians always have to seek out someone to validate what they just felt when a quake hits. I don't know why we do this, but, for as long as I've lived here, it seems that whenever a quake hits, we look for another person to see if they felt what we just felt. I guess we do it to make sure it was not some kind of hallucination. :laugh: Once we validate what we felt, we can return to what we were doing and pray that there are no more quakes to follow.

From here, I proceeded to the front room to turn on the PC and sign unto the USGS site ( http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/archives.php?query=nc+or+ci ). It took only a few moments to discover that we were hit by a 5.7 earthquake. Of course, the USGS is now saying it was an after-shock to the 7.2 quake we had last month.

But, an earthquake, or, aftershock, are all the same., The ground shakes and what it is does not matter, what matters is the fact that our ground has been shaking really bad since that 7.2 quake on the Mexico/U.S. border about a month ago. And this was one more good sized jolt and roll.

For me, it is always unsettling when the solid Terra fir-ma, which I want to believe is as solid as a rock, begins to shake, rattle, and roll. It sort of "sucks" the confidence right out-of-me!

Still, in less than 18 hours, we've had 30 after-shocks. The good thing about Perris Valley is that we are sitting on semi-solid rock formations, and it takes a quake of 5.0, or more, to make us feel it. For that, I am blessed and eternally thankful.

So, if you are thinking about moving to California in the near future, I'd love to sell you some "beach front" property in the Barstow area. From Barstow, you'll have an excellent view of the Pacific and enjoy tremendous sundowns from your front porch swing. :laugh:

Blessings and Smiles to You,

Pastor Paul :type: