Follow down

I felt I needed to follow up on a few things. So in all ernestness, I try to satisfy that subversive dark side and hence I will follow down.

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Writing adventure:

With all my ranting about numbers, you'd've thunk I'd get them right myself, or at least use some consistant reporting format. Last time I mentioned my progress, well I screwed it all up. So, in fact I am 0/4, awaiting results on 1 submission. Some time back I wrote 4/5, which doesn't even make sense. (Even less than the double contraction in the phrase "you'd've thunk.")

To those of you who are new, that means I have entered 5 writing contests or competitions of somesort, I have not won any of them and I am awaiting the results of 1.

The sixth event is in view. It is not a contest at all I don't think, so maybe I won't count it in the tally, but it is a writing event in which I will participate. Stay tuned for mid-October. (Thanks for the tip, Sophie.)

Not very good results, but half way through my adventure, I think it is really hard to win these things. Who knows what "they" are looking for. Who knows who I am competing against. But I do know one thing, I am having fun and it is making me write more.

As for my ego, it is happily enjoying trying to make my blog better.

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Life adventure:

Maybe the events of the past few weeks is why I feel the need to follow down, rather than up. Earthquake. Floods. Mouse in the office.

There was no major damage from the earthquake (a few things fell down that were already falling, I thought that someone was kicking my bed). More significant was the way it made people feel.

Summary Data: Magnitude 4.4, 3 minutes to verify it by a USGS siesmologist, 3 more minutes to get my own GPS point from my phone, download the KML file from USGS, plot the points in GoogleEarth and make the following map. 19.2 miles from me (as the crow flies). I love it. How cool is that!

The bias is clear. How me-centered is all that data? Hiesenberg... not sure how he fits in, but he must. By making the map did I affect anything? I spent a few minutes with the gaurds showing them the map. They may have thought I was nuts, but they seemed to enjoy the company.

And then the floods and winds came down from heaven with great wrath, and many of the 8 (9?) month old ramshackle tents and tarps got blown to shit. Billboards flew around among the power lines. People died. And how did it affect me? The office went into overdrive. Very exciting and good learning from some talented folks.

But the mouse in the office was the real emergency, and like all big storms, he got a name. Murphy the WASH Cluster mascot mouse.

Oh boy do I sound... jaded? tired? twisted? I assure you, I am all of those things.

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For you folks at home, I do not live in a tent anymore. When I am not in Port au Prince, I live in a 2x3m room in a metal shipping container. Quite safe in an earthquake and in a storm. When I am in Port au Prince, I live on my friends' floors. Still a hobo singin' that lullaby.

Geology rocks

I admit that I sometimes mock tourists, but today hypocrisy bit me in the ass: I couldn't help myself and so I took fifteen minutes to be a tourist. To my credit, I was a geologist-wanna-be tourist, which is way cooler than obnoxious Americans or teenagers of any nationality.

I stopped at my new favorite place - where the biggest fissures I have seen are. Every so often we have to slow down because there are dips or drops in the road. All from the earthquake. But this point just blows me away. The driver laughed when I tried to explain how impressed I was. It's a little hard to explain, even here, in English.

I am such a geek. I dare not show my lack of actual geology knowledge, despite my degree (I studied the water in the rocks, not so much the rocks). Of course I studied basic geology too, and saw photos and learned about faults and earthquakes and the wrath of plate tectonics. I lived in California where you have the San Andres, but the signs of creep I saw there are nothing, I tell you nothing, compared to this.

Geologist friends, please enlighten us.

Holy shit. (Expletives! YAY!) There is nothing else to say. I mean really? This happened in seconds. Imagine.

On the left you see the driver looking into the crack that opened up. This is close up, but the fissure goes on forever. See the photo on the right is only about half of it. (And yes, it is full of trash... we are eight months after.)               

These two are looking the other way up the road. The crack on the right side of the pavement is the same fissure as above, from the other direction. But that is not what I am trying to show here: you see how it is wavy. This used to be flat. Flat. Flat. And now, it's wavy. Awesome.

I am reminded of an ironic geology bumper sticker that encourages us all to "Stop Plate Tectonics!"