Snow bits and quake bobs
Jul. 28th, 2011 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rumpelsnorcackI was going to write this yesterday when it was all appropriate and relevant and timely, but with the way LJ has been lately I couldn't get on so you all get warmed over news. Yay? Also, I'm going to start actually crossposting from Dreamwidth rather than just saying lethargically that I should do it. This is post one of my crossposting life. Wooh!
Anyway, yesterday was day 3 after the big snow and for the first time I remember it was all still around in the morning. The footpaths were getting icy and a bit hazardous (and even more so today when I managed to fall over – or rather be pulled over by Summer when she fell). So obviously when you live near a beach and there's snow to sea level you have to go check it out, right? Cue beach and snow and sand play – and many many pictures. I normally get lots of good pictures of Summer, but this time it was Taylor who turned on the charm and I got better ones of him than the others. Hence the Taylor picspam.
(whut? no upload option Dreamwidth? No pictures for you then: LJ can have all those when it regains its senses)
After my camera's battery died and I put it away we spent a good half hour exploring the sand dunes, which was hilarious because the kids refused to stick to the paths but the snow hid all the tussocky holes and they kept falling into some pretty deep places. It was great though and a lot of imagination going on. They were on a mission because the police had gone to the army and they had sent in my 3 because they were the experts and they had to find all the hidden crystals. I'm not sure why the crystals were so important to the police but I do know I'm no good at finding them. Anything I suggested might be a crystal was met with incredulous glares and 'No! That's not right, Mummy' :D
While we were out my friend texted me to say that Eastgate Mall, which has been mostly closed since February, was now mostly open as per expectations. That's obviously good – that part of the city has been sadly lacking in any sort of shopping for a good 5 months and while it's never been my favourite mall it's always been a nice, close-ish place to do basic shopping. The bad part is how much smaller it is now. Technically it's not that much smaller I guess, but I notice it because the shops that are gone are the end I used the most. I mean I always knew there were shops around the food court and beyond but I hardly ever went to them so the mall as I knew it is just gone. It's quite surreal. The only remaining mall to reopen is The Palms and I guess that's the one I'm looking forward to most, especially the movie theatre which was always the best of the mall complexes. As far as I know none of it is missing so it will hopefully be the place I remember when it opens again in September. We are at least slowly dragging back towards normal; that's a good thing right?
Later last night I went to the first in a six lecture series on the earthquakes. It was really interesting (and at points a little worrying). The two lecturers had very different styles with the first guy being very entertaining, funny and mostly reassuring (only mostly because a scientist none of them would be drawn into totally settling fears) and the second guy being a lot dryer (that could also be because his content was a lot dryer) and much less reassuring. He was saying things like 'yeah, the Porters Pass fault system is a nice mature one, all joined up and capable of creating a 7.5 quake, then this next lot those are on the way to joining up nicely. Now this system under the city here is a very young one so it's going to eventually join up like the other two' and people were looking at him like 'um ... I know you're talking long term here, but that sure sounds like a bunch of faults all excited about going off quite a lot in the reasonably near future' (or maybe that was just me, I dunno ...). The first guy addressed 'is this normal?' the question everyone here asks. The upshot is that, yes, in broad terms it is normal but in tiny detailed terms there are a few differences even to other similar events, and we 'can be proud' that the September quake was the highest ever recorded difference between length of the fault rupture and the displacement of the ground (which elicited a laugh; that's not something anyone wants to be proud of). It was all very interesting though and the details of what they were doing were good to know. I particularly liked how they talked as if they expected people to understand – a lot of it was technical and scientific but there was no sense of dumbing it down for laypeople. That made it a little hard to follow in some places but was mostly really great. I'm really looking forward to next week's one on liquefaction.
I went along with the mother in law of two of my friends and it was really good. It's probably the longest I've been alone with her but we had a good time. However, on the way home she talked a lot about a friend of hers who was in the CTV building when it collapsed. I won't go into details (yesterday I grossed out/depressed both lorelaisquared and my husband by detailing it) but I'll just say it's a very harrowing story and it made me quite contemplative for the rest of the night. Until then I hadn't really allowed myself to think about what happened to those people, but now I don't think I'll ever be able to forget what I know. The other disturbing thing about it was how pragmatic she was when she described it. I know she was very emotional about it at the time and it was very hard for her, but now she was almost clinical when she discussed it. I found that hard to deal with and knowing how to respond was also difficult but I'm glad she talked to me and I'm glad I know. It was horrible but it did make me think differently about the whole thing.
And because that was kind of depressing, here have some more beach and snow fun photos for light relief. (or, if you're Dreamwidth, don't, sorry)
Anyway, yesterday was day 3 after the big snow and for the first time I remember it was all still around in the morning. The footpaths were getting icy and a bit hazardous (and even more so today when I managed to fall over – or rather be pulled over by Summer when she fell). So obviously when you live near a beach and there's snow to sea level you have to go check it out, right? Cue beach and snow and sand play – and many many pictures. I normally get lots of good pictures of Summer, but this time it was Taylor who turned on the charm and I got better ones of him than the others. Hence the Taylor picspam.
(whut? no upload option Dreamwidth? No pictures for you then: LJ can have all those when it regains its senses)
After my camera's battery died and I put it away we spent a good half hour exploring the sand dunes, which was hilarious because the kids refused to stick to the paths but the snow hid all the tussocky holes and they kept falling into some pretty deep places. It was great though and a lot of imagination going on. They were on a mission because the police had gone to the army and they had sent in my 3 because they were the experts and they had to find all the hidden crystals. I'm not sure why the crystals were so important to the police but I do know I'm no good at finding them. Anything I suggested might be a crystal was met with incredulous glares and 'No! That's not right, Mummy' :D
While we were out my friend texted me to say that Eastgate Mall, which has been mostly closed since February, was now mostly open as per expectations. That's obviously good – that part of the city has been sadly lacking in any sort of shopping for a good 5 months and while it's never been my favourite mall it's always been a nice, close-ish place to do basic shopping. The bad part is how much smaller it is now. Technically it's not that much smaller I guess, but I notice it because the shops that are gone are the end I used the most. I mean I always knew there were shops around the food court and beyond but I hardly ever went to them so the mall as I knew it is just gone. It's quite surreal. The only remaining mall to reopen is The Palms and I guess that's the one I'm looking forward to most, especially the movie theatre which was always the best of the mall complexes. As far as I know none of it is missing so it will hopefully be the place I remember when it opens again in September. We are at least slowly dragging back towards normal; that's a good thing right?
Later last night I went to the first in a six lecture series on the earthquakes. It was really interesting (and at points a little worrying). The two lecturers had very different styles with the first guy being very entertaining, funny and mostly reassuring (only mostly because a scientist none of them would be drawn into totally settling fears) and the second guy being a lot dryer (that could also be because his content was a lot dryer) and much less reassuring. He was saying things like 'yeah, the Porters Pass fault system is a nice mature one, all joined up and capable of creating a 7.5 quake, then this next lot those are on the way to joining up nicely. Now this system under the city here is a very young one so it's going to eventually join up like the other two' and people were looking at him like 'um ... I know you're talking long term here, but that sure sounds like a bunch of faults all excited about going off quite a lot in the reasonably near future' (or maybe that was just me, I dunno ...). The first guy addressed 'is this normal?' the question everyone here asks. The upshot is that, yes, in broad terms it is normal but in tiny detailed terms there are a few differences even to other similar events, and we 'can be proud' that the September quake was the highest ever recorded difference between length of the fault rupture and the displacement of the ground (which elicited a laugh; that's not something anyone wants to be proud of). It was all very interesting though and the details of what they were doing were good to know. I particularly liked how they talked as if they expected people to understand – a lot of it was technical and scientific but there was no sense of dumbing it down for laypeople. That made it a little hard to follow in some places but was mostly really great. I'm really looking forward to next week's one on liquefaction.
I went along with the mother in law of two of my friends and it was really good. It's probably the longest I've been alone with her but we had a good time. However, on the way home she talked a lot about a friend of hers who was in the CTV building when it collapsed. I won't go into details (yesterday I grossed out/depressed both lorelaisquared and my husband by detailing it) but I'll just say it's a very harrowing story and it made me quite contemplative for the rest of the night. Until then I hadn't really allowed myself to think about what happened to those people, but now I don't think I'll ever be able to forget what I know. The other disturbing thing about it was how pragmatic she was when she described it. I know she was very emotional about it at the time and it was very hard for her, but now she was almost clinical when she discussed it. I found that hard to deal with and knowing how to respond was also difficult but I'm glad she talked to me and I'm glad I know. It was horrible but it did make me think differently about the whole thing.
And because that was kind of depressing, here have some more beach and snow fun photos for light relief. (or, if you're Dreamwidth, don't, sorry)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-28 10:04 am (UTC)I haven't browsed in Eastgate yet, but never did much anyway. Should go check out what's open though. (Especially ATMs, since my wallet's getting low again....)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-28 10:37 am (UTC)I don't like to upload pictures of my kids to flickr etc just because I'm fussy like that so LJ's upload function worked well for me. Oh well, pictures will just have to be an LJ special thing, I guess.
Yeah Eastgate isn't a very browse-y mall really. I would go there specifically for Countdown, The Warehouse, TNT and JK for the kids and for sushi because I loved their sushi - now clearly Countdown, The Warehouse and JK are still there but TNT is apparently gone and so is the sushi, though thankfully the one in the food court is run by the same people and so should *fingers crossed* hopefully be the same.
As for the ATMs I don't know if that bank of them that was by Countdown is still there. That whole entrance appears to be gone - very disorientating to be in a carpark where you're pretty sure shops used to be. You can't even get into The Warehouse from inside the mall which I find a bit weird as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-28 05:12 pm (UTC)I'm not sure why the crystals were so important to the police but I do know I'm no good at finding them. Anything I suggested might be a crystal was met with incredulous glares and 'No! That's not right, Mummy'
Lololololol!
and people were looking at him like 'um ... I know you're talking long term here, but that sure sounds like a bunch of faults all excited about going off quite a lot in the reasonably near future' (or maybe that was just me, I dunno ...)
Just reading that I'm having vague imaginings of the earth cracking open and dumping you into the core. And that's probably not helping, sorry . . . Lectures sound very interesting, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-28 08:33 pm (UTC)Yeah there was this terrible discrepancy between being worried about the people who were in a bad way and being all 'SNOW!!!!!! Pretty pretty SNOW!!!!' and since there hasn't been all that much to be excited about lately the excitement mostly won. The kids think it's great but hopefully won't expect this every year. It's not exactly common hereabouts lol.
Just reading that I'm having vague imaginings of the earth cracking open and dumping you into the core. And that's probably not helping, sorry . . . Lectures sound very interesting, though.
Heh, at least it would be warm in there (it's slightly cold here what with the ice still hanging around and all). But yeah the lectures should be great. There have been a few jokes that we're due for another big quake now though. The last time they tried to run a series of lectures the second one was scheduled for the evening of February 22, which obviously didn't happen and people got a bit twitchy. Funny the things that set off your quake twitcninesses :D
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-29 05:05 pm (UTC)Hahahaha! Glad to hear it.
There have been a few jokes that we're due for another big quake now though. The last time they tried to run a series of lectures the second one was scheduled for the evening of February 22, which obviously didn't happen and people got a bit twitchy. Funny the things that set off your quake twitcninesses :D
It seems like a situation pretty perfectly calculated to bring out everybody's superstitious side :-\
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-29 09:42 pm (UTC)