San Diego Earthquake and Technology

So I just crossed one item off of my bucket list.

The earthquake’s origins were in Baja, Mexico, but the BPM’s of my heart monitor would indicate the quake was isolated inside my apartment.  In hindsight, it was no big deal.  The walls and floor rumble for a half a minute, your dishes shake, and you pee yourself a little.  Kind of fun actually.  But it’s also educational.  You learn a lot about yourself.  Here’s what I learned about The Good Badger during an earthquake .

  • Entirely unprepared. My initial reaction was to lay in bed.  My next reaction was to duck and cover.  Luckily I was with gf who is much smarter than I.  As soon as she could get me to stop crying, we fled outside.
  • Entirely unprepared pt. II.  On my way out, I forgot to grab my shoes, wallet, keys, or any snacks.  Upsetting, but not the end of the world.  What is far more traumatic, however, is forgetting my iPhone.  How was I supposed to Tweet my paranoia, check in on Foursqure (you’ll see in a minute), tell mom not to worry (in a very worried tone), or even find news about the earthquake.  Fortunately 12 of the 12 neighbors around me had their iPhones and were kind enough to show me the drop pin of the earthquake’s epicenter no more than 10 minutes after it occurred (awesome).  iPhone, will you ever forgive me?
  • Technology is Awesome.  Within minutes the TwitOSphere was overrun with fellow San Diegons giving their 140 character takes on the situation.  True, nothing anyone said saved, prevented, or helped anything, only because their was nothing to save.  With that said, there’s a calming presence knowing other people are going through the same thing.  Had the situation been worse, however, Twitter has proven to be a life saving resource.
  • Technology is Awesome pt II. A new social media service has poked its head into the emergency reaction game- Foursquare.  For those who are still unfamiliar, Foursquare is a location based, social-networking service, where users “check in” to different establishments to notify their friends of their whereabouts and collect badges.  One of the more highly sought after badges, The Swarm Badge, is acquired after you check in to the same establishment with at least 49 other Foursquare members simultaneously.  Within a half hour, someone created the check-in location “earthquake”,  and over 70 people checked in.  I’m guessing this is the first time the service has been used to check into a establishment-less event.  I’m also guessing it’s not the last.  Either way, I got me a Swam Badge, suckas!

My takeaway from this: Apple needs to invent an iPhone holder which you can put inside of your body.  Maybe a surgically attached Kangaroo pouch.  The iPouch?

Get on it Jobbs

  • Hank Hollman

    Wow! Please tell me “you peed yourself” was your style of humor. My first reaction when the chair I was in started shaking and loud noise was that someone was banging on the wall I was sitting against until I saw the windows opposite me flucuate … and looked outside to see a concrete planter had fallen from a balcony alcove [making the noise] and then knew it was an Earthquake. I thought “cool” for a second until everything in the room was shaking, even the floor and tried to remember recommended courses of action … stand in a doorway … No, wait, didn’t someone else say not to do that? I moved away from anything that could fall on me and just to the side of the ceiling fan and light and stood there feeling the floor shake. Fear would not have been the right word … concern is much closer. All that was replaced by the thought [45-50 seconds later when all was still] ‘could I have imagined it’? Not having smoked anything in years, I didn’t think so,but there was no crack splitting the street in two, the walls were intact and geysers of lava weren’t shooting into the sky, soooo ??? Luckily turning on the TV and flipping through channels showed me a report on the “Earthquake occured moments ago, details coming in …” and brought back a sense of ‘guess I’m not crazy after all’.

  • Bravo.

  • zachrd99

    I like to leave my readers in suspense. The self urination is a mystery to all except me and my damp underpants.

    I do share your sense of the event feeling surreal. Although the result was rather harmless here in San Diego, while it’s happening, you can’t help but think the world is a few seconds from ending. The expression, “rock your foundation” means to bring an overwhelming sense of uncertainty to your world. Literally rocking your foundation actually accomplishes this.

    And once and for all, are you supposed to stand in the doorway??