T8191

Many thanks for all the effort you put in to that, c-w-s ... I'm just sad it's finished. What on earth am I going to read (and re-read) next week?

It's been a fantastic 'experience' following you around: and you are heartily welcome to that lifestyle

Physci

A big thank you to C-W-S for the time and effort to produce this non-TR which has provided a fascinating insight into your working week.

Much as I might want to do more flying than I currently do, I certainly don't envy the amount that you do.

But do keep up the supply of Ferrero Rocher for DOs

corporate-wage-slave

That's a good one. I'll do a proper summary / conclusion later on, but there was a bit of a post script here, namely we had quite an earth tremor / mini earthquake here, about 30 minutes ago.

I was planning on being up early since I'm not on Pacific time all this week, but at 03:32 this morning I was woken by what I initially thought was very noisy neighbours dragging something across their room, scraping the floor as they went. A second or two later it felt like all my dogs (and I've got some big ones) were leaping up and down on my bed in a wild celebration. If you don't have a dog, incidentally, this is what they do! After another second or two I thought "oh, this must be an earthquake, perhaps lying here isn't so sensible?". I weighed up my options: running naked to reception and out of the hotel, getting some clothes on and then running, crawling under the fairly substantial desk. I thought the desk idea was best, since I could probably get some clothes on whilst waiting for the masonry to arrive. Anyway by this stage it stopped completely and that was it really.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-28918600

This was my second tremor, the first was a pair during a day and following night a few years ago in Manchester, Mancunians will remember that one.

expatboy

We at least need to hear about the return to Blighty, if not anything about SFO - you can't just leave us in the luch [flying in the face of the available evidence here, but...]

^ for a truly stonking read this week - good work!

AeroWesty

They are, but not usually in larger sealed buildings, like full-service hotels. I was in one hotel recently where the lobby had central air which was fed up to the elevator areas of every floor, but every room had one of these units, plus one beneath the window at the end of every floor's hallway.

manymany

C-W-S thanks for the thread this week, I have enjoyed following it having nothing else to do with myself! Found it very interesting. And even though I don't know you from Adam, as soon as I saw the news of the quake as it happened, I immediately thought of you!

DrGee

Have just caught up with this thread. PHL eh? We're off to PHL in J for the first time in a couple of months. We'll even be travelling by train to DC for a day's sightseeing while there.

Following in the footsteps of c-w-s. Who'd have thought it?

AlbaGuBrath

Thanks for the interesting report CWS - it's a nice change from the usual leisure reports!

Stez

Sounds like you noticed the distinctive forms of seismic waves.... P/S waves (compression, primary; shaking; secondary), and/or possibly Love waves. Did you really have an eventful night in SFO? Or were you dreaming of your sheep... could be a Lamb wave (related to a Rayleigh wave).

Love/Lamb/Rayleigh waves are types of surface waves (there are others) and are the most destructive seismic waves after an earthquake as it has the greatest surface motion.

I'm also jealous you get to experience a relatively strong seismic activity.

Beansprout

Second-best thread on FT after printingandbreakfast.

Actually, scratch that - best thread on FT. And the t-shirt choice!

Philly is a charming place (the accent just gets me) and BA sending the 787 there might be the last straw to finally make me visit again although for anyone who's not done the East coast US, I recommend starting at Boston and working your way down to DC. You'll almost certainly make a bunch of friends and then keep running into them - we met one group in Boston, then at the same hostel (student days!) in Philly, then again at the railings of the White House!

If you do Baltimore, don't get the bus through the outskirts...that was an experience

corporate-wage-slave

One of the fantastic things about FT is there are so many experts here, I forgot this was your bread and butter, I was about to send it BotB's way as our natural disasters guru. So: what was the noise?

The feeling, lying in my bed face up, was of the centre and sides of the bed curling inwards and then downwards, followed by a wave sweeping across from my toes to the my shoulder. My toes were pointing to Sacramento, my head was pointing to Hawaii.

CreativeBill

How sure are you that that wasn't just housekeeping changing the linen?

Stez

The noise was most probably the P-waves for the initial noise you heard... a rattling sort of noise. As you were asleep, you may have missed some more subtle signs that did not wake you up... if so, then it could well be S-waves, a shaking motion which may have caused things to rattle.

The motions you felt in bed were the various components of the destructive waves and are typically low frequency (<20Hz), high amplitude, relatively low velocity surface events.

Without instruments/data I can't tell you if you had a Love wave in your bed or not, but chances are you did have one. Or... as CreativeBill said, maybe it was the housekeeper.

crazy8534

Just when you were looking for a good way to end the report, the pacific ring of fire did it for you! Glad to hear you made it through that one unscathed CWS. Fantastic read, loved the tomato sauce story!

000

Thank you for this amazingly interesting and insightful report c-w-s. I'm intrigued as to where the next few days will take you.

I lost count of the number of TPs you clocked up early on in the week!

Thanks again and I hope to see you again at an FT do soon (or in the CCR!).