Realizing that earthquakes can hit your blog is good
I was talking to Ronald around 3:45 pm today when my entire building started shaking. It was a minor earthquake that shook Berkeley for about 3 seconds before moving onto nearby cities. Ronald said that I should expect such things because of being in the San Francisco area, and that got me thinking: disasters and unexpected events can happen to your website at anytime, and if you realize that, you will panic less and fix any damage due to such disasters faster.
People can worry less about life if they know about things that can hurt life
Why do most people in Northern California not worry too much about the frequent earthquakes? The reason is because most places in the Bay Area have buildings that can survive most earthquakes. Also, many people know what to do when an earthquake strikes, like not following the typical advice of taking cover under the doors when an earthquake happens; hiding under the door can actually get you killed. Because of being aware that disasters have happened and they will happen, many people feel safe.
Realizing that something can hurt your blog enables you to be well prepared
If you expect something similar to an earthquake to hit your blog, you will be able to easily focus more on what to do instead of spending time panicking. You can simply think of a list of actions you need to take in case different chaotic things happen to your blog. Chaotic things online that can affect your blog and blogging include, among many other things, your domain name getting hijacked, your internet connection going down for hours, your important posts getting deleted by accident, or your site getting hammered by thousands of comments that get mysteriously approved and published on your site for many of your posts.
Protect and enjoy your blog the same way one protects and enjoys life
Once you accept the fact that such things can happen and have even a small idea of how to respond, you will probably worry less about your blog facing such problems in the long run. If we can worry less about our lives simply because of knowing about the bad things that can happen, I am sure we can worry less and react efficiently when problems hit our blogs if we already know that online disasters can affect our blog and blogging too.
What do you think about this? 
Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it.
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( February 24th, 2007 at 2:49 am )
Yicks, hope I won’t get any when I’m in San Fransico ahha.. how is it there? Any places you think I should visit in particular? I have one and a half days to go around there so.. any suggestions? ;).
Thanks for the tips haha, they are awesome! XD
- hiding under the door o_O pretty freaky!
( February 24th, 2007 at 1:47 pm )
Hehe, I learned all about this last semester when I took Geology… LOL… Oh yeah, you knew about the paper I wrote on the SF earthquake… LOL.
Oh, as for the door thing… My Geology professor told us that standing in the doorway is the safest place… I don’t know, but that’s what he said… LOL…
( February 25th, 2007 at 9:30 am )
Vera, I hope you don’t either.
It’s very nice in the Bay Area. Well, there are many places you can visit. What days will you be coming [weekend or weekdays], and what do you like seeing? Museums? Historic places? interesting restaurants? etc
If you do not have enough time and don’t know where to go, then Fisherman’s Wharf may be a good place. It is near many other things and has a lot of things to see. Following is their main website, though please note that anytime you go back to their main page, an annoying pop-up, hmmm how to put it, pops up! It simply won’t remember that you already viewed the pop-up 10 times and are coming back to the homepage after visiting other areas of the site:
http://www.fishermanswharf.org/
You can go on boat trips from there to see the famous/once-infamous Alcatraz [watch Clint Eastwood's 1979 movie "Escape from Alcatraz" if you can and if you haven't to get a small idea of why it became famous/infamous]. Trips to Alcatraz require reservation and most of the time they are booked if you do not buy them in advance. You can buy those tickets here:
https://www.alcatraztrips.com/
From the Wharf you can also rent bikes by the hour or the day and bike around the entire town. If you love Ghirardelli chocolate, you can walk from the Wharf to their landmark-type presence nearby to try their free chocolate and see how chocolate is made:
http://www.ghirardellisq.com/ghirardellisq/
The walk itself will show you a lot of interesting things and people along the way. The following picture I took was from that walk along the way:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/besz/141183188/
Note one thing, though, that the Ghirardelli chocolate square is not a huge factory. It has some interesting things and you will see how chocolate is made, but it is not a tour and it is not a big factory with thousands of people working left and right to make good chocolate for you. It consists of a series of 3-4 shops, each specializing in something that contains Ghirardelli like ice cream, coffee, the original chocolate itself, etc.
Try to do the entire Fisherman’s Wharf thing and the Ghirardelli thing within 6-8 hours, if not sooner. That will allow you to do something else early in the morning and then come to the Wharf, or do the entire Wharf early in the morning and see Alcatraz also and then go to other places. You can spend an entire day in the Wharf and still be happy, but if you are only going for 2 days and spend an entire day in one location, even if it spawns a few miles, you may feel “Hmmmmmm =\” after a while when you think you could have visited more places, heh. You can go to SF Union Square which has a lot of shopping places and some really nice things to eat:
http://www.sfgate.com/traveler/guide/sf/neighborhoods/unionsq.shtml
There are many good restaurants in the SF area. In the Union Square, a small trick to find out what the locals like and what tourists drool after is to see the bags people are carrying when they walk into a busy restaurant. If people aren’t carrying bags or cameras and are going into a restaurant like crazy, chances are that restaurant makes good food that the locals crave. Try to see if you can eat different ethnic foods around Union Square. You may like it. Avoid fast food places on the trip if you can: not because of any health issues, but because you may not want to try eating something which you may already be able to eat in your current city everyday. If you want, you can eat Cheesecake factory on the top floor of the Macy’s building right there in Union Square [request to be seated in the patio/balcony] and you can see the sky and people way down below while you eat that food and then the yummy cheesecake.
At most restaurants, once you enter, try to get someone’s attention to let them know that you are waiting for a table for you and people with you. Even if someone makes a face to show you “I already noticed you!”, it’s better to approach someone and say you need a table since many times big restaurants and small places are so busy that if you are standing by the door politely for a long time and someone simply walks in and makes themselves appear before the staff, they get seated first because the staff probably didn’t notice you, even if they should. Also, try eating at smaller and narrower restaurants [you will hopefully know what I mean by "narrower"]. Big places can get away with saying “Sorry!” or making up for bad food, but small places have to make good food or else tourists will never come back to them because of the competition.
Transportation system is very nice in the Bay Area, though since it is really good, it can be confusing and very busy because of so many routes running everywhere. Forget about renting a car in San Francisco; you will hate the area afterwards if you do because of not finding easy parking. You will do most of your visual experience on foot. I used to sometimes drive over 300 miles a day in Southern California and since I have moved here earlier this year, I have driven less than 200 miles combined so far. Subway, bus, tram and other options are nice enough to be reliable, and you can view and research them online to get a good idea of what happens when you want to use them. For traveling between San Francisco and neighboring areas [like Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, etc], try this:
http://www.bart.gov/
If you do travel between SF and other bay areas, please remember that it takes time, sometimes about an hour to get from one place to another. You may want to start going places early in the morning since you don’t have much time there. For bus and other transportation system, so you can get an idea of timings and rates and how many stops it will take before you get from one major point to another, try Transit 511 [which you can also get through the phone since it's a city-wide initiative by dialing 511 from your phone]:
http://www.transitinfo.org/
Last but not least, you may see a lot of homeless people on the streets everywhere. Don’t be scared! You can simply ignore them or say “No sorry!” when they ask for something. Homeless people may act normal since they are normal and simply don’t have a home. Some homeless people will yell, jump around, listen to music, give speeches and try to debate, talk out loud, look at the sky making you wonder what they are looking at, crawl around, sit in the middle of the street or simply walk around enjoying the view also. Nothing to worry about in the day time, since they do it all the time and most of them are not out there to get you or your money. At night, I have seen guys and girls in groups getting scared when they see a single homeless person on their paths, so I am guessing you have to be careful when you are alone or when it’s late at night.
That should hopefully help you a bit. Remember, look at weather.com to research San Francisco’s weather during the time you will be here, and always keep an umbrella with you. I am assuming you will bring jackets with you.
Thanks.
Chau, yes, I remember.
Also, for the door thing, that’s interesting. It seems so many people are warning against door frames, and so many are recommending door frames. Did your professor say why it was the safest place to stand under? I won’t argue since I know your professor may be right, since when it comes to saving lives, we should focus on that only, lol.
The original idea behind door frames was that in certain countries, strong earthquakes devastated buildings but left doors intact, so many people said that doors can be a good cover. Doors can be a good cover. However, in other countries most doors are built from brick, while in most states here [or all of them], it’s strong material like strong wood and other plastics. If a strong earthquake were to hit and the door frame couldn’t withstand it, the entire frame will come down and crush anyone under it.
I cannot hide under my computer desk in such a situation. I don’t think it can protect from anything falling on it. The best thing could be to simply take cover under the strongest thing you can realize in your house. If you know your house was built using earthquake-safe protocols and the door frame is sturdy, then that can be the safest place to tuck under. Also, if I had to stand under door frames, I would be under a door that’s closest to the main door. That would allow me to run out and help if help is needed, and if no help is needed, start taking pictures as soon as possible. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I have no idea what I will do after a big earthquake. If it’s anything other than panic, it should hopefully be good.