The Shamrock Shake

There was a 4.4 earthquake centered in the Santa Monica Mountains between Encino and Westwood early this morning. Geologists say that it was the biggest recorded earthquake in the Santa Monica Mountains ever. Of course when an earthquake hits, your first reaction isn’t wondering where its epicenter is. It’s to not die. Like the news anchors above.

These anchors have been given a lot of shit for their reactions. But they did the right thing. If you’ve never been in a studio, you’d not know how many lights are dangling right above the anchors. They say it’s safe and the lights won’t fall, but you never know.

I was at Hulu when the 2008 Chino Hills earthquake hit, a 5.5-er. This wasn’t anything like the Northridge Quake, the Big Bear Quake, the Landers Quake. Growing up in LA in the late 80s to mid 90s, things were quite active seismically. This quake became a blip.

It first felt like a truck driving past our building shaking it. But it persisted. That’s when I knew it was an earthquake. It got stronger, but the shaking was never violent. I was cool with it, but there was one problem: I had an old school CRT tv hanging from the ceiling right above my desk. As the shaking continued, I decided I was going to value my noggin. I ducked underneath the desk until the shaking stopped.

When you have things dangling above your head, you make sure you protect yourself.

Here in the Pedro in the Manse, I didn’t wake up. Then again, I didn’t wake up for the Northridge Earthquake until the very end of it, but that’s because my mom was hollering. Bitch.